Phantom

PART TWO
16

The mother rat licked the metal. It tasted of salt. She gave a start as the fridge sprang into life and began to hum. The church bells were still ringing. There was a way into the nest she hadn’t tried. Hadn’t dared to try since the human blocking the entrance was not yet dead. But the high-frequency howls of her young were making her desperate. So she did. She darted up the jacket sleeve of the human. There was a vague smell of smoke. Not smoke from a cigarette or a bonfire, but something else. Something in gas form that had been in the clothes, but had been washed out so that only a few molecules of air were left between the innermost threads in the cloth. She approached the elbow, but it was too narrow there. She stopped and listened. In the distance there was the sound of a police siren.

There were all those brief moments and choices, Dad. Those I thought were unimportant, here today, gone tomorrow, as it were. But they pile up. And before you know it they have become a river that drags you along with it. That leads you to where you are going. And that was where I was going. In fricking July. No, I wasn’t going there! I wanted to go elsewhere, Dad.

As we turned in towards the main building Isabelle Skoyen stood on her drive, in her tight riding breeches, legs akimbo.

‘Andrey, you wait here,’ the old boy said. ‘Peter, you check the area.’

We got out of the limousine to a cowshed smell, the buzz of flies and distant cowbells. She shook hands stiffly with the old boy, ignored me and invited us in for a coffee, ‘a’ being the operative word.

In the corridor hung pictures of nags with the best bloodlines, the most racing cups and fuck knows what. The old boy walked along by the photos and asked if one was an English thoroughbred and praised the slim legs and impressive chest. I wondered whether he was talking about a horse or her. Nevertheless, it worked. Isabelle’s expression thawed a little and she became less curt.

‘Let’s sit in the lounge and talk,’ he said.

‘I think we’ll go to the kitchen,’ she said and the ice was back in her voice.

We sat down, and she put the coffee pot in the middle of the table.

‘You pour for us, Gusto,’ the old boy said, looking out of the window. ‘Nice farm you have here, fru Skoyen.’

‘There’s no “fru” here.’

‘Where I grew up we called all women who could run a farm “fru” whether they were widows, divorced or unmarried. It was considered a mark of respect.’

He turned to her with a broad smile. She met his eyes. And for a couple of seconds it was so quiet all you heard was the retard fly banging against the window trying to get out.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘Good. For the moment let’s forget these photos, fru Skoyen.’

She stiffened on her chair. In the phone conversation I’d had with Isabelle she had at first attempted to laugh off the suggestion that we could send the photographs of her and me to the press. She said she was a single, sexually active woman who had taken a younger man, so what? First of all, she was an insignificant secretary to a councillor, and second this was Norway. Hypocrisy was what they pursued at American presidential elections. So I had painted the threat in bright colours with concise strokes. She had paid me, and I could prove it. She was a punter, and prostitution and drugs were issues she tackled in the press on behalf of the Social Services Committee, didn’t she?

Two minutes later we had agreed a time and place for this meeting.

‘The press writes enough about politicians’ private lives as it is,’ the old boy said. ‘Let’s talk about a business proposal instead, fru Skoyen. A good proposal may, unlike blackmail, afford advantages to both parties. Agreed?’

She frowned. The old boy beamed. ‘By business proposal I don’t mean of course that money is involved. Even though this farm probably doesn’t run itself. That would be corruption. What I’m offering you is a purely political transaction. Covert, I’ll grant you that, but this is something practised every day at City Hall. And it is in the people’s best interests, isn’t it?’

Skoyen nodded again, on her guard.

‘This deal will have to stay between you and us, fru Skoyen. It will primarily benefit the town, although if you have political ambition, I can see a possible advantage for you personally. Given that is the case, it will of course make the path to a leading chair at City Hall much shorter. Never mind a role in national politics.’

Her coffee cup had stopped halfway to her mouth.

‘I haven’t even considered asking you to do something unethical, fru Skoyen. I just want to illustrate where we have common interests and then leave it to you to do what I think is right.’

‘I do what you think is right?’

‘The City Council is in a tough spot. Even before last month’s unfortunate developments, the steering committee’s aim was to get Oslo off the list of Europe’s worst towns for heroin use. You were to reduce drugs turnover, addiction among young people and not least the number of overdoses. Right now nothing seems more unlikely. Isn’t that right, fru Skoyen?’

She didn’t answer.

‘What’s needed is a hero, or a heroine, to tidy the mess from the bottom upwards.’

She nodded slowly.

‘What she has to do is to clear up the gangs and the cartels.’

Isabelle snorted. ‘Thanks, but that’s been tried in every town in Europe. New gangs spring up again like weeds. Where there’s demand there will always be new suppliers.’

‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘Just like weeds. I see you have a field of strawberries, fru Skoyen. Do you use a mulch?’

‘Yes, strawberry clover.’

‘I can offer you a mulch,’ the old boy said. ‘Strawberry clover wearing Arsenal shirts.’

She looked at him. I could see her greedy brain working at maximum revs. The old boy looked pleased.

‘Mulch, my dear Gusto,’ he said, taking a swig of coffee, ‘is a weed you plant and allow to grow unhindered to prevent other weeds from appearing. Because strawberry clover is a lesser evil than the alternatives. Do you understand?’

‘I think so,’ I said. ‘Where weeds will grow anyhow it’s a good idea to plant a weed that doesn’t destroy the strawberries.’

‘Exactly. And in this little analogy the City Council’s vision of a cleaner Oslo is the strawberries, and all the gangs selling dangerous heroin and creating anarchy on the streets are the weeds. While we and violin are the mulch.’

‘And so?’

‘And so you first have to do the weeding. And then you can leave the strawberry clover in peace.’

‘And what is it that is actually so much better for the strawberries?’ she asked.

‘We don’t shoot anyone. We operate discreetly. We sell a drug that does not end in overdoses. With a monopoly in the strawberry field we can raise the prices so high that there are fewer and fewer young people recruited. Without our total profit going down, it has to be admitted. Fewer users and fewer sellers. Junkies will no longer fill the parks and our city-centre streets. In brief, Oslo will be a delight to behold for tourists, politicians and voters.’

‘I’m not on the Social Services Committee.’

‘Not yet, fru Skoyen. But then weeding is not for committees. For that they have a secretary. To make all the small, daily decisions which in their entirety constitute the real action taken. Naturally you follow the council’s adopted policies, but you are the person who has daily contact with the police, who discusses their activities and ventures in Kvadraturen for example. You will of course have to define your role a bit more, but you seem to have a certain talent for that. A little interview about drug policies in Oslo here, a statement about drug overdoses there. So that when success is a fact the press and your party colleagues will know who is the brain behind — ’ he put on his Komodo dragon grin — ‘the market’s proud winner of this year’s biggest strawberries.’

We all sat very still. The fly had given up its attempt to escape when it discovered the sugar bowl.

‘This conversation has never taken place,’ Isabelle said.

‘Of course not.’

‘We’ve never even met.’

‘Sad but true, fru Skoyen.’

‘And how do you imagine… the weeding should be conducted?’

‘We can offer a helping hand. There’s a long tradition of snitching to eliminate rivals in this industry, and we’ll supply you with the necessary information. You will naturally provide the Social Services Committee with suggestions for the Police Commission, but you will need a confidant in the police. Perhaps someone who can benefit from being part of this success story. A person…’

‘An ambitious person who can be pragmatic so long as it’s in the town’s best interests?’ Isabelle Skoyen raised her cup to a skal. ‘Shall we go and sit in the lounge?’

Sergey was lying supine on the bench as the tattooist studied the drawings in silence.

When he had arrived punctually at the little shop the tattooist had been busy designing a big dragon on the back of a boy who was lying there with his teeth clenched while a woman, who was clearly the mother, was comforting him and asking if the tattoo needed to be so big. She paid when it was finished and on the way out asked the boy if he was happy now he had an even cooler tattoo than Preben and Kristoffer.

‘This one will fit on your back better,’ the tattooist said, pointing to one of the drawings.

‘ Tupoy,’ Sergey muttered. Idiot.

‘Eh?’

‘Everything has to be exactly the same as the drawing. Do I have to tell you every time?’

‘Yeah, well, I can’t do it all today.’

‘Yes, you can, do it all. Double pay.’

‘Urgent, is it?’

Sergey responded with a brief nod. Andrey had rung him every day, kept him up to date. So when he had called today, Sergey had not been prepared. Prepared for what Andrey had to say.

The necessary had become necessary.

And Sergey had known there was no way out.

He had immediately brought himself up short: no way out? Who wanted out?

Perhaps he’d thought of escape because Andrey had warned him. Told him that the policeman had managed to disarm an inmate they had paid to kill Oleg Fauke. Fair enough, the inmate was only a Norwegian and hadn’t killed anyone with a knife before, but it meant that this wasn’t going to be as easy as the last time. Shooting their dope seller, the boy, had been a simple execution. This time he would have to sneak up on the policeman, wait till he had him where he wanted and take him when he least expected it.

‘I don’t want to be a killjoy but the tattoos you’ve already got are not exactly quality workmanship. The lines are unclear, and the ink’s poor. Shouldn’t we freshen them up a little?’

Sergey didn’t answer. What did the guy know about quality workmanship? The lines were unclear because the tattooist in prison had to use a sharpened guitar string attached to an electric shaver as a needle, and the ink was made from melted shoe sole mixed with urine.

‘Drawing,’ Sergey said, pointing. ‘Now!’

‘And you’re sure you want a pistol? It’s your choice, but my experience is that people are shocked by violent symbols. Just so you’re warned.’

The guy clearly knew nothing about Russian criminals’ tattoos. Didn’t know that the cat meant he had been convicted for stealing, the church with two cupolas meant he had two convictions. Didn’t know that the burn marks on his chest were from a magnesium powder dressing he had held directly on his skin to remove a tattoo. The tattoo had been of female genitals and had been given to him while he had been doing a second stint in prison by members of the Georgian Black Corn gang who thought he owed them money after a card game.

Nor did the tattooist know that the pistol in the drawing, a Makarov, the Russian police’s service weapon, denoted that he, Sergey Ivanov, had killed a policeman.

He knew nothing, and that was fine, it was best for everyone if he stuck to tattooing butterflies, Chinese symbols and colourful dragons on well-fed Norwegian youths who thought their catalogue tattoos were a statement about something.

‘Shall we begin then?’ the tattooist asked.

Sergey hesitated. The tattooist had been right, this was urgent. But why was it so urgent, why couldn’t he wait until the policeman was dead? Because if he was caught after the murder and sent to a Norwegian prison, where unlike in Russia there were no tattooists, he wouldn’t be able to get the bloody tattoo he needed.

But there was another answer to the question as well.

Was he getting the tattoo before the murder because, deep down, he was afraid? So afraid he was not sure he would be able to go through with it? That was why he had to have the tattoo now, to burn all the bridges behind him, remove all possibilities of a retreat so that he had to carry out the murder? No Siberian urka can live with a lie carved into his skin, that goes without saying. And he had been happy, he knew that he had been happy, so what were these thoughts, where did they come from?

He knew where they came from.

The dope seller. The boy with the Arsenal shirt.

He had started to appear in his dreams.

‘Yes, let’s begin,’ Sergey said.